But to the world no bugbear is so great,
As want of figure and a small estate. [ Pope ]
When we mean to build,
We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection;
Which if we find outweighs ability.
What do we then, but draw anew the model
In fewer offices; or, at least, desist
To build at all? [ William Shakespeare ]
Ignorant men differ from beasts only in their figure. [ Cleanthes ]
Every man, however little, makes a figure in his own eyes. [ Henry Home ]
A pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation. [ Bacon ]
Silence is a figure of speech, unanswerable, short, cold, but terribly severe. [ Theodore Parker ]
There are some faults which, when well managed, make a greater figure than virtue itself. [ La Rochefoucauld ]
Genius easily hews out its figure from the block, but the sleepless chisel gives it life. [ Willmott ]
The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station, in a human figure. [ Addison ]
Figure-flingers and star-gazers pretend to foretell the fortunes of kingdoms, and have no foresight in what concerns themselves. [ L'Estrange ]
The want of a more copious diction, to borrow a figure from Locke, is caused by our supposing that the mind is like Fortunatus's purse, and will always supply our wants, with out our ever putting anything into it. [ Bovee ]
Love is blind, and the figure of Cupid is drawn with a bandage round his eyes. Blind: yes, because he does not see what he does not like; but the sharpest-sighted hunter in the universe is Love for finding what he seeks, and only that. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
We say love is blind, and the figure of Cupid is drawn with a bandage around his eyes. Blind - yes, because he does not see what he does not like; but the sharpest-sighted hunter in the universe is Love for finding what he seeks, and only that. [ Emerson ]
The grave is a sacred workshop of nature! a chamber for the figure of the body; death and life dwell here together as man and wife. They are one body, they are in union; God has joined them together, and what God hath joined together let no man put asunder. [ Hippel ]
Every man, within that inconsiderable figure of his, contains a whole spirit-kingdom and reflex of the All; and, though to the eye but some six standard feet in size, reaches downwards and upwards, unsurveyable, fading into the regions of immensity and eternity. [ Carlyle ]
If all fools had baubles* we should want fuel. (*The fool or jester carried in his hand a wooden sceptre called a bauble. It was a short stick ornamented at the end with the figure of a fool's head, or with that of a puppet or doll. Jesters were still retained in Herbert's day.) [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Style! style, why, all writers will tell you that it is the very thing which can least of all be changed. A man's style is nearly as much a part of him as his physiognomy, his figure, the throbbing of his pulse, - in short, as any part of his being which is at least subjected to the action of the will. [ Fenelon ]
As in the case of painters, who have undertaken to give us a beautiful and graceful figure, which may have some slight blemishes, we do not wish them to pass over such blemishes altogether, nor yet to mark them too prominently. The one would spoil the beauty, and the other destroy the likeness of the picture. [ Plutarch ]
Despair makes a despicable figure, and descends from a mean original. 'Tis the offspring of fear, of laziness and impatience; it argues a defect of spirit and resolution, and oftentimes of honesty, too. I would not despair unless I saw misfortune recorded in the book of fate, and signed and sealed by necessity. [ Collier ]
Charms which, like flowers, lie on the surface and always glitter, easily produce vanity; hence women, wits, players, soldiers, are vain, owing to their presence, figure and dress. On the contrary, other excellences, which lie down like gold and are discovered with difficulty, leave their possessors modest and proud. [ Richter ]
It is wonderful indeed to consider how many objects the eye is fitted to take in at once, and successively in an instant, and at the same time to make a judgment of their position, figure, and color. It watches against our dangers, guides our steps, and lets in all the visible objects, whose beauty and variety instruct and delight. [ Steele ]
A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of. It heightens all the virtues which it accompanies; like the shades of paintings, it raises and rounds every figure, and makes the colors more beautiful, though not so glowing as they would be without it. [ Addison ]
An observant man, in all his intercourse with society and the world, carries a pencil constantly in his hand, and, unperceived, marks on every person and thing the figure expressive of its value, and therefore instantly on meeting that person or thing again, knows what kind and degree of attention to give it. This is to make something of experience. [ John Foster ]
A statue lies hid in a block of marble, and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone; the sculptor only finds it. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. The philosopher, the saint, or the hero, - the wise, the good, or the great man, - very often lies hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred, and have brought to light. [ Joseph Addison ]